How To Use Social Media To Promote Your Blog

Blogging, sounds quite common doesn't it?

For every topic you can think of, there is already something written about it.

Wow!

Can you think of the total number of blogs out there?

Well, we are sure that the number is too huge. But does the number of blogs your write matter or the number of readers you have?

Of-course, it's the readers that matter.

So, the most frequent question that comes into blogger's mind is, how to get people to read your blog?

That is what we are going to focus on today. Blogging is the soul of digital marketing, it's crucial that we get more readers.

There would be no sense in blogging, if you don't have an audience, right? Unless, you have a different motive for blogging.

Okay, if you are still hung up on this blog, I am sure we have the same motive-To promote blogs better!

Well, social media is an important part of it, but the umbrella term we'll be looking at is digital marketing!

So, even if you have mastered the art of writing, you will need basic marketing skills to get the ball rolling.

Book writers, bloggers, or Ebook writer, everyone is taking help of social media to ace the race of the digital world.

Unfortunately, very few of them know the right way to do so.

This article is going to be all about sharing your content on social media. "How to," Do's, and Don'ts of blog promotion, you'll find every step covered in this article.

Table of Content

Share on blog promotional sites
Re-visit your older content
Re-purpose your blogs
Engage with your audience
Connect to Influencers
Build a community
Don't be a spammer
Befriend your fellow Bloggers
Leverage notifications
Leverage social media platforms

Sharing your blog on promotional sites helps a lot in driving traffic and boosting engagement on your blog.

You can post summaries of your blog or a few of your original content on these mentioned sites.

As these sites already have a healthy flow of traffic, your blog is more likely to receive more attention:

Medium
Growth Hackers
Zest
Blogger
WordPress

2. Re-visit your Older Content

If you've written a valuable piece of content that needs to get the limelight, then sharing it once does not solve the purpose.

Neither does creating new content every time. You need to re-visit your older content, update it and re-share it with a fresh perspective.

If you're struggling to create well-written copies, use the help of the professional essay writers to ensure the high quality of your content.

How does one get more eyes on older content that has neither been republished nor has been discovered by the google bots yet?

Besides google, you can leverage social media as well!

Nowadays, your audience is scouring Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn as much as it is looking for information on a search engine.

These new-age search engines help you build a relationship with your target audience.

You can re-share your posts on social media using digital marketing automation tools like SocialPilot.

How you ask? It's simple.

Once you've made changes to your existing blog, you can dive back into the social media analytics of your page, find the blog you want to re-share or repeat; and voila! Your post has been re-shared.

Reshare posts

3. Re-purpose your Blogs

After you hit the publish button, what do you do with that piece of content?

Repurposing the same content provides you with the opportunity to reach a larger audience and reinforce your message.

For a head start, you can repurpose your blogs that have been working really well so far. So, here's the answer to the question, How to get your blog noticed?

You don't need to create content day in and day out, just repurpose the already created content to reach more people!

Whiteboard Fridays by Moz

Team Moz creates Whiteboard videos every Friday for a better understanding of their audience. But, it doesn't just end there. They further distribute those videos individually and also turn them into blog posts.

Repurposing means using the same content ideas, but just a different medium to present it.

You can repurpose your content as

Infographic
Video
Podcast
Slideshare
Newsletter

and every other way you can think of!

People have various preferences of medium to consume content, and providing them with options increases your chances of being noticed.

4. Engage with your Audience

Can't put enough emphasis on this! Even if you have a huge following and connects on social, you won't be able to convert them into your audience until you engage with them!

Comment, share, like and engage with your followers in all possible way.

Message them a link of your blog. Ask them what they liked and more importantly what they didn't!

This will help your readers to know you personally as well as help you understand your readers better!

Don't Miss the Small PlatformsWhat's fascinating for one person might not fascinate others, and that brings the possibility that readers are spread across all the small and big social media platforms.
Even if you are thinking of ditching the platforms like Quora and Tumblr, then drop the plan. Quora helps a lot in driving back to your blog page. Focus on these platforms and create visibility for the users.

Suppose you want to promote your blog or your website or a new update and let your kind of audience know about it? Simply just find the related questions and answer mentioning a link back to your blog or website.

Also, you need to stick to the guidelines for content asked by these platforms. For example, one platform may support lots of images, one will support a lot of content and some may support both and encourage videos as well.

5. Connect to Influencers

Regardless of the industry, you are related to; you will find certain people to be more active on social media.

These highly active members are termed as influencers, and they often tend to have a high number of followers.

It would be beneficial for you if you establish a connection with them and convince them to share your post on their network.

Simply find the influencer of your niche and start engaging them in the most natural way. You don't need to sound like a greedy marketer who is trying to gain benefits with other's effort.

Reply and comment on the posts that interest you and your next step will be including them in your posts.

If you are giving them advantages for free, there are 100% chances that they publish your content in their network.

Also, provide them with a opportunity to post on your website and encourage them to promote it.

Also, you could invite them to post a guest blog on your site. This way they'll be promoting their blog, but your site indirectly!

Every social media platform has a feature through which people of same interests connect. Communities, Groups, and connections are the name given to these activist groups.

Post Your Content in Several GroupsYou will have to identify ten such groups or communities where you can share your content. Make sure the group is active as there are a lot of dead groups too. Check the number of members in the group and also by posting one or two blogs for testing whether you get a considerable response or not! Share your content in each of these groups and see how the traffic boosts.
Message Your Connection in These Groups
You need to endorse your content so that people come to know about its goods. For this, you can directly approach your connections and ask them to share your post on their network.
In return, you can offer them your cooperation in promoting their posts. There are several groups on Facebook as well as slack where you can promote your blogs. Bloggers Boost Group is one such Facebook group!

7. Don't be a Spammer

Less is more! Know when to stop.

Some of the users complain about their Twitter users sharing too much content.

Sometimes people keep sharing the old contents every hour and this particular strategy might lead to a few clicks, but in the end, it will only be hazardous, annoying your regular followers. Stick to these rules if you want to avoid this ugly situation:

Know what your followers like to see and when they are more likely to visit your profile.
Rather than a crowded schedule, stick to a smart one
Get into the follower's shoe and see what you would like to read
Never force something on your followers that you would dread to take
Always provide value to your post, no fluff at all.

8. Befriend your fellow Bloggers

You are more likely to succeed if you are a part of a blogger community.

To be specific, cross-promote content to reach a wider audience. Try and connect to people from the industry as you, with the similar profession,and collaborate.

If things go well, you might share their audience. However, the approach should be utterly professional and value-oriented.

Here is how you should approach:

Create a List
Listicles are the most brilliant form of content, and if you can create a post saying – top 10 bloggers mentioning and linking each blogger's name, it is going to work in your favour.
Share their Content
Read the blogs by your fellow bloggers and appreciate the information shared. Twitter is the best place to do so as you can quickly mention their name and post a comment. Once you do so, the fellow blogger will get a little familiar to your name and might surf your profile and click on the blog linked to your profile. The chances are high that they return the favour by promoting one of your content.

There are several apps such as iZooto a web push notification tool and Optin Monster where you can create popups. These are very useful to generate leads as well as retain your audience. Offering some valuable content, free or discounted subscription to is always a good idea to encourage lead generation!.

10. Leverage Social Media Platforms

a. Update your bio

The first step that you need to cover is– promote your blog on your profile. Update your existing profile by adding a link to your blog.

Visitors might love to see your writing skills and can even turn out to be your loyal reader. Plus, this is the best way to start promoting your blog.

People who already are connected to you on social can easily access your blog!

Promote your blog on your profile

b. Optimize for every platform

Every social media channel handles the images and texts differently, and you have to utilize it as your strength. For example, Twitter supports posts with images, and if you post your content with a captivating image, then it can bring you many clicks.

Content with a captivating image

c. Use hashtags the right way

Find out the trending keywords and club them with the hashtag too. Hashtags increase the find-ability and reach of the post.

You can check the trending Hashtags on your Twitter and Google Plus account and use it for your posts. However, you need to be particular with the use. For example, on a Facebook profile use no more than 2-3 hashtags, but on Pinterest and Instagram, you can use 5-6 or more hashtags.

d. Schedule your content

Once you have linked your blog to the social media accounts, now is the time to figure out the time slot, in which you should post your blogs. The catch here will be determining a time on which you can post the content.

Every platform has its time of high and low hours and you need to promote your content accordingly!

If we talk according to the current survey, Facebook sees a lot of users between the slots of 1.00 pm to 4.00 and then during the morning hours 9.00 to 11.00 am, whereas, the traffic for Pinterest surges during the night, after 8 pm. If you hit the traffic hours of these platforms, the results will be better, and you will directly get into a bunch of readers.

You don't need to send your posts one after another as it will only annoy the followers. Here is an infographic that will guide you to the right time to share your content on different social media platforms.

e. Write posts that hook the reader!

Write copies that prompt the reader to click on the link. Getting them curious about the topic always works. Ask questions that your audience can't resist. Use a striking quote related to your topic.

After you hit the publish button, what do you do with that piece of content?

Such things tend to hook the reader.

f. Use compelling creatives

Text-based data has already taken a back seat and it's the time for the image-centric approach.

More than 65% of the people consider themselves to be a visual learner and avoid reading long paragraphs. Understanding this simple phenomenon will help your content perform better.

Here is how you should proceed

Visual Power

Capture the Attention of Your AudienceMost people skim through the content to find out exactly what they are seeking. If you post a long para on your social media without any images, it will turn off the user. On the other side, if you take advantages of pictures, you can grab the attention of the reader, and they might stick around exploring the benefits of your posts. You can use tools like Canva & PromoRepublic to create engaging images for your blogs to look attractive.
Break the Text Instead of writing the entire content in one go, focus on step by step guides. Breaking the text in between makes people stop and read what you are saying and this would help you gain visitors for your blog posts.
Add some colours to ItAdding image to your post has a connection with the colour psychology. When you add images to the post, you give a contrast to the boring text and users stop by to see the exciting part. The trick here will be making your content more stimulating so that you can spice up a boring post. See the post below and how the image is adding a pop of colour.

Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr are the best examples of how much people adore image-based platforms. Millions of users are using these platforms because the image is always better than the text.

g. Shorten your links as well as add snippets

Experts recommend using the shortened form of the blog link on your social media profiles. The rate of clicks increases when you put a shortened link and to do so you can use link shortening tools like Snip.ly.

Customized snippets are the best feature of this tool. You can add an automated call-to-action to every link you share and that drives traffic to the link shared in the snippet. You can get your readers from one blog to another with this tool! Here is how it works:

Shorten the URL and add call to Action

h. Automate your Social media

You can use a social media management tool to stay consistent. You can use either SocialPilot app or it's browser extension to schedule your posts directly. Using these tools, you can also reuse your old content. Just add a new title and share on your social media platforms. The image below shows how SocialPilot can help you out.

Technology is evolving at a drastic pace today! It is important to keep up with the new trends to keep your blogs as marketing strategy relevant!

Sharing your blogs on social media is fun and the result is everything worth the effort. Also, the task and goal, both are very simple, you just have to utilize the tools around you and traffic will be boosted for sure.

Social media scheduling